This complaint is about an online shipping service: www.actionshipping.com

After receiving a quote for the cost to ship a piece of furniture from Charleston, SC to Chicago, IL, I promptly filled out all of the required paperwork and faxed it back (1. the information was quite invasive given there was no scheduled pick-up/delivery dates, carriers, etc. and 2. why faxing for an online service?). Regardless of my concerns, I did this quickly as I was quite eager to get the piece shipped, within the following two weeks, before I had to leave Charleston for Chicago.

After not hearing from them for several days, I sent an inquiry email about whether they were indeed going to be able to meet my deadline for shipping (as they said they could during the first email exchanges). I received a reply that they were still going to meet the deadline, but still no dates, carriers, etc.

With one day to go before I was to leave, I received a call early that morning from a local moving van carrier, asking if I could be available later that day to have someone pick-up the piece. I said 'yes!' and that no matter what time, I would make myself available at the storage unit where the piece was stored. They said how about within the hour. I said yes and drove 45 minutes to the storage unit, where I waited for another 45 minutes until a man arrived in a older model, medium size Jeep SUV (for a sofa-like piece, described as 73 inches long). When I said that I was pretty confident it wouldn't fit in his Jeep, the man said that he'd like to try - to try with my helping carry it from the storage unit and lift it into the Jeep.

It didn't fit. It would have hung out the back almost 2 feet. The man said he would tie it in. Now given I was about to pay $600+ to ship this, I was not going to begin the trip with my piece hanging out the back of an old SUV. So I said 'no, let's take it back in.'

I was disappointed but felt better it was safe than to think I was about to give it to people who had thus far presented themselves pretty unprofessionally.

A representative from Action Shipping called and apologized. Said he might have another vendor in Charleston.but since I was leaving the next day and had already spent almost three hours on this little adventure I said no thanks.

I didn't really get mad about all this until I received a call from a punk who said that I was going to be charged $40 for canceling the shipment. I tried to explain the situation and only received an arrogant reply of "I'll decide." So I was charged because I had signed an agreement that said I would pay if I cancelled - I didn't cancel, but I guess Sean (that's his name) made his big executive decision.

So if you want to ship - try to use someone else!